So You Want To Be a Master?
by Tiger208
Summary: Bryon's quest to the League. Noodle's quest to goof around. And it starts in Northern Indiana
1. The beginning

So You Want to Be A Master?

**Authors Notes****: This is joint project between me and my brother. And also our first fic. The idea for this story came after I read A New Master's Quest by HandsOfFate and I thank him for the inspiration. **

**Disclaimer:**** I do not own Pokemon. There, I said it.**

**Chapter 1**

My name is Bryon McKeehan and this story about my quest to become a pokemon master. It had been a few weeks since I had graduated high school and that meant that the Pokémon league was coming into its semi-finals. As such I was heading over to Dexter Perry's house to catch today's battles. He had the bigger, high-def television so it seemed like a no brainer. He was a year older than me but we had been best friends for over decade now thanks to the mishap of us both getting lost on a school field trip. That day the teachers learned that the buddy system, doesn't really work when both buddies don't have clue where they are going.

I looked at myself in the mirror and comb back my short blonde hair one more time. Then I traced my finger across the scar on my right eye and looked down at Duke remembering the day that this growlithe had saved my life. "Let's go," I told him, "Mrs. Perry is baking apple pie today. We wouldn't want to those jerks to eat it all, would we?" Duke barks at me and we head out the door.

When we entered his house I yelled for my friend. "Noodle! Where are ya?"

"Yo Bryon. I'm in my room." He responded from his room.

I navigate the narrow hallways to where he is sprawled out on his bed in watching the TV. "Dude are those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?"

"They're clean," he said.

"Ish, the word you're looking for is cleanish."

"That still has the word clean in it."

"You're hopeless," I sighed.

"So are you," he remarked.

"Anyway… where is Steak?"

"He should be helping mom in the kitchen." He says and, as if he knew I was asking, I feel Steak's flaming tail pushing me aside as he came in with a few bags of chips. I sit down on the couch next to Noodle's bed and Duke made himself comfortable next to me. "He looks excited. What's up?" Noodle asks as he looks over the bed at us.

"Duke is just really into the new trainer Zevon. His Arcanine has swept two of his opponents this year." I tell him.

"Dude! He's…" Noodle started but was quickly hushed by a stern "Der." From Steak.

At the start of the first break we had begun playing a game of life. It was Duke's turn and an idea struck me. "We should go on a Pokémon journey." I blurted out before processing the thought. "Char!" Steak yelled as it flipped the board in excitement.

Noodle, however, just looked at me with a puzzled face. "Ok… Why?" he inquired.

"Think about it. I have enough money saved up to do about a year's worth of travelling. Also, we wouldn't be the first people to take a year off of college to do something crazy. But, most importantly we can go the distance." My voice got louder with every word.

"What makes you so sure we will be any good?" Noodle questioned.

"C'mon bro, we have predicted the outcomes and line-ups for every match so far today and several last year."

"Fine, I can tell you won't let this go." He reached behind him for something. "Let's put it in God's hands. If this coin comes up heads I'll go ahead and support you on this adventure. But if it's tails, you drop the subject and we just go back to our lives."

Noodle threw the coin up in the air and I waited in anticipation. Noodle caught the coin, lifted his hand slightly, and then threw his head back in disappointment. "Dangit!" He said sounding a little depressed.

"I take it we are going?" I asked, shaking in excitement.

"I guess I could use the road trip." Noodle muttered under his breath. Then we finally noticed our Pokémon fighting because Steak had thrown the board in Duke's face.

"Duke, get his head out of your mouth." I said as I tried to pull my furry friend away from the fire lizard.

We spent the next week preparing for what we assumed to be a yearlong trip. Convincing my mother to let me go was probably the hardest part. Luckily Noodle was with me. After he conversed with her she became very accepting of the situation. For some reason Mom always trusted his judgment more than mine. My sister Angie didn't care what I was doing as long as it got me out of the house sooner. Dad was away on one of his breeding trips but Mom told me that I had to be the one to explain the trip to him when he got home Wednesday. As for Noodle, I may never know what he told his parents about the trip that week.

I took the next couple of days to limit the amount of money on my debit card and put most of it in savings. I told my boss at the restaurant that I was quitting my last summer early and working only until the end of the week and that I hoped he could have a position open for me next summer when I came back. When shopping I bought some belt clips to keep pokeballs on, along with twelve pokeballs and two TMs I found in a buy one get one free deal. I Looked at the pokedexes and concluded that they were to expensive. So instead I installed a pokemon archive onto my laptop that could tell about a Pokémon through pictures I took on my phone. I decided to wait until after my dad got home to buy a new tent and traveling equipment since he was experienced in these ways.

When Wednesday afternoon finally came I was going crazy waiting for the old man to finally get home. Around seven o'clock when we saw the car pull in the driveway. The parents walked in the door and he got a hug from me and Sis.

During dinner the bulky man told us stories of his trip. Like how he had to wrestle an Ursaring to the ground or that he swore he saw a Suicune, but it was gone before he could get his camera. Once dinner ended Mom gave me a look that told me that I had to tell Dad about the trip _now._

Quickly, I grabbed Dad's shoulder before he could shift himself into the living room. "Dad," I said as I turned him towards me, "we need to talk."

Being eye level with me at 5' 9" he shouldn't be a very intimidating man. He shouldn't be but, 20 years of a physically demanding job gave him much more bulk than a man his age should have. Also, I didn't know what he would do when I said told him that I wanted to drop school and work for a year filled me with the fear of his disappointment as I sat him down across the table from me.

As I looked him in the eyes I took a deep breath and started my presentation. "Last week as we were watching the league Dexter and I decided that we should go on a journey this year." He looked at me with a blank face. "Mom has already given the go ahead with the condition that successful or not I will go to college next year. I know that the idea is sudden and crazy but I think I can make it. But, if I don't try I will always wonder." I kept looking at him hoping for at least a reaction.

Finally, he looks down and starts talking, "Yeah, I already knew all this." "What?" I ask. "News travels fast." He replied with a smile. "One of your friends told their parents and called me about it. And who am I to stand in the way of a child's dream? So I decided to get you this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pokeball. "Duke is good, but he can't win all your fights." The fire dog growled in disagreement as he lay at my feet.

I looked down at him, "C'mon boy, let's meet our new friend." Everyone went out into the front yard so I could throw the ball without fear of breaking anything. The opened up and out of the white light came a cat that blue fur on its front half and black fur on its back half as well as around its neck. On the end of its tail was a four pointed star and above the front paws there was bright, yellow fur that I could see electricity coming out of. It saw all the people staring and must've gotten scared because the next thing we knew it had sprinted into the garage.

Dad put his hand on my shoulder. "That Shinx is a little shy but Rudy thought that she would make a good addition to your team."

"That's more than a little shy." I laughed.

"If you think it's scared now you should have seen it when I caught the little thing," my dad laughed, "Completely paralyzed with fear at the sight of my dragonite."

"You say that like it's a good thing."

"It is, overcoming that shinx's shyness is going to be a great challenge and test of your skills as a trainer."

"I always did like challenges," I said ready and determined to make my pokémon two of the greatest ever.

**Well that was our first chapter I hope it was interesting enough for a exposition. There will be a battle in the next chapter!**


	2. Goodbyes

The Poke Adventures of Noodle n' Bryon

**Authors Notes****: Hah! First fight!  
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**Disclaimer:**** I do not own Pokemon. There, I said it.**

**Chapter Two**

Everyone else went inside as I walked toward the garage to find Shinx. "Come on out. It's just me here. " I saw Shinx poke her head out from behind a tire and start to walk towards me. "There we go. Everything is okay." I said as I held out my hand for her to sniff but she jerked her head back and started to motion towards the car again. I grabbed her before she could run and sat the Shinx in my lap. "It's okay," I said, "I'm not going to hurt you." Shinx calmed down after a minute then started to purr as I pet her. I picked her up to look her in the eyes. "I'm going to give you the confidence to steal the show in every battle." I said. "As proof of this promise I'm going to call you Star." She seemed happy with this and jumped up on my shoulder.

By the time Friday had rolled around I had finally finished packing everything. Or at least I had enough to get me to the closest gym in Chicago. That night Noodle and I got together with most of our friends for goodbyes. Fortunately for us, we weren't the only people who had to say goodbye midsummer.

Noodle always had nicer stuff than me, but, my house was much bigger. This meant if we were hanging with more than ten people, my house is where we went. Everyone had gathered there for a big dinner, a bonfire, movies, etc. I had been using my time to sit on the couch and talk with people about old times.

At one point a group of people walked over to us and a brown haired who was leading them grabbed my attention and asked the question. "We have been wondering this for a while so, could you explain to us the reason is for Dexter's nickname?" I looked at them and laughed a little under my breath. Then I saw my friend going through the room carrying another cooler of drinks to the backyard.

I called out to him, "Noodle!" l yelled to him. "They want to know about your nickname!" I pointed at the group.

Noodle just smiled, rose up a fist, and yelled. "What nickname?"

I began to laugh and looked back at the group. "That was typical." The brown haired girl said to me with a serious look on her face. "Sorry, you see it is from…" Before I could finish I was interrupted by old friend of mine named Mark.

"Can I borrow this guy for a minute?" He said while pulling me into the other room. I looked back at them as I walked away and said I would finish later.

We walked into the backyard. "What's up?" I asked. "How serious are you about becoming a trainer?" He responded. "Did you already ask Noodle this?" I asked him. He looked at me questionably. "C'mon, it's easy to figure out who the brains behind this idea is. I just want to know how ready you are. I mean, do you really think you can do it? I have never known you for succeeding in life."

Mark was right of course. We had been in sports together for years but he had always been an obviously better athlete among other things. This probably one of the reasons he was going for army training in the next week. I looked up at Mark. "Do you want to test my abilities?" I asked him. He looked back at me with a smile a said simply, "Now you're speaking my language."

We cleared space out in the backyard for the battle. The borders were made up of a mixture of lawn chairs and people. We had also appointed a mutual friend as referee. "Are you ready for this?" Mark asked with a smug look on his face. Whether Mark had realized it or not, he had recently put himself on a pedestal high above me. Kicking the legs out from under that pedestal was just the thing I needed before setting off on the journey. "Of course, let's do this." I replied. The referee looked at both of us and said, "This will be a one on one battle. Once you choose your Pokémon there is no turning back. Trainers ready? Throw out your Pokémon on three. 1… 2… 3!"

"Let's go Duke!" I said as I threw his pokeball onto the grass. Duke stood proudly on the lawn in front of me. We both frowned as we saw the blue penguin with two crests on it head appear in front of us. Mark had not yet told me that his little friend Piplup had recently evolved into a taller version of itself. It also had longer wings, and the four white spots on its light blue lower half reminded me of a pair of shorts I had seen in old cartoons. I realized that I would have to pull some surprises to beat its heightened advantage.

Before I could think Prinplup fired a bubblebeam right for Duke. "Duke," I yelled, "quick, dodge to the side and roar at the bubbles!" Duke jumped out of the way and white sound waves came out of his mouth and the vibrations cause the bubbles to pop.

"Now use peck," I heard as Prinplup came out from behind the beam and charged with its beak glowing white.

"Duck," I said to Duke as he dropped to his belly and dodged Prinplup's attack. "Now, bite his wing and throw him." Duke clamped his teeth onto the wing. Then, using the penguin's momentum against him, Duke picked prnplup up into the air and smashed him into the ground.

I started thinking. _This is going much better than I had expected. My commands are flowing with ease and Duke is responding to them pretty well. _This line of thinking stopped as I noticed Prinplup's body glowing white as it was about to use bide to absorb the impact from the ground.

"Use ember and get out of there." Duke shot dozens of hot rocks at Prinplup in an attempt to some damage. Unfortunately Duke couldn't get away in time. An explosion of energy came out from Prinplup and knocked Duke back. Duke rolled to his feet only to get shot at with another bubblebeam with no time to dodge.

"Charge through it with aerial ace," I called to Duke. White streaks surrounded Duke as he charged at the bubblebeam. He jumped into the air about halfway through the beam and came down at Prinplup, fast. The aerial ace hit the stunned Prinplup with amazing force, knocking it back a few feet. Prinplup didn't seem to take too much damage because it landed on its feet. But I saw that Mark was just as stunned as his Pokémon and told Duke to rush him. I realized quickly that Prinplup was smarter than I had given him credit for and used fury attack on his own. Duke easily dodged the first two attacks but mis-stepped and got hit by the last three. "I have to get him out of there." I said to myself.

"Duke, use ember at his face and get some distance" This time the ember managed to burn Prinplup. The pause given by the burn gave Duke just enough time to run away and catch his breath. Mark did not seem to want the momentum to slow as he called for another bubblebeam but I told Duke to jump over it and counter with aerial ace. The white streaks flowed around the Growlithe as it jumped into the air and charged at Prinplup. Mark had a serious look on his face as he watched the fight.

Mark smiled then as if he was expecting that attack. "Wait for it… Dodge!" Prinplup stepped out of the way at the last second, narrowly dodging Dukes attack. "Quick, barrage it with metal claw." Mark called. Prinplup slammed Duke into the ground once with its wing. This would have been the perfect itme for Prinplup to finish the fight but it twitched as the burn took effect again.

I took the opportunity. "Throw him into the air!" I yelled. Duke bit onto one of Prinplups wings, swung him in a circle, and threw the penguin Pokémon straight up. "Now, use aerial ace, full power!" I said knowing the match wouldn't last much longer. Once again white streaks surrounded Duke as he took off towards the Pokémon straight above him.

I could hear Mark yelling, "Prinplup, bubblebeam to finish it!" Duke was inches away when the horde of bubbles came out of Prinplups mouth. I heard numerous gasps as the two attacks collided causing an explosion.

Time seemed to stand still as we waited for the smoke to clear. After a few seconds we saw the shadowy figure of a Growlithe. Duke was standing weakly with his front paw planted on top of an unconscious Prinplup. "Prinplup is unable to battle. The winners are Bryon and Duke." Said our referee as Duke howled in victory. Mark and I received many cheers and compliments as we walked to our Pokémon.

"I can't believe you beat me." Mark said as he returned Prinplup to its pokeball.

I looked back at him. "Looks like I am more ready to leave than you are. C'mon Duke, you've earned a snack." Mark and I discussed the battle as we walked towards the house.

"You really surprised me with aerial ace. I didn't even know Growlithes could learn that move." Mark said.

"Yeah I found that TM this week in a buy one, get one free bin. You should've seen the look on your face. But you also didn't tell your Piplup evolved." I looked a little puzzled.

"Sure, but you still knew I was going to use a water Pokémon. So why not use that new Pokémon you said you had?" Mark questioned.

"Two reasons," I answered, "1: Star is still pretty shy and wouldn't be able to handle the crowd well. 2: I figured Duke could use some practice fighting with a disadvantage." We were now in the kitchen and I reached for a beef stick. "Duke, take this and go get some rest. We've got a big day tomorrow." Duke barked, grabbed the beef stick, and ran off towards my room nearly tripping Noodle on his way out.

"Hey look who it is, it's the pokemon brawlers." Noodle said as he entered the kitchen. "That was a great battle."

Mark gave him a high five and asked. "So, do you have any new Pokémon for your journey?" Noodle became confused.

"Why?" he asked back, "I'm not going to be battling." I crossed my arms gave him a stern look.

"Yes you are. And you're going to like it."

"Says who?" Noodle questioned a little angered.

"Me… and Steak." I responded stepping away to reveal Steak behind me with his arms also crossed.

"Char." He said.

Noodle opened his phone and looked at it for a second.

"June 22nd," he said, "yep, its tick off Noodle day already." We looked back to Mark who was holding his gut laughing.

"In any case," Mark interjected, "I caught this Pokémon recently and I thought you might want him." He grabbed a pokeball out of his pocket.

"Really? Why?" Noodle asked as he picked the pokeball out of Mark's hand.

"I don't really need Poochyena where I'm going and I figured you would enjoy his company more than my parents would." He explained

"Well, let's see the pup." Noodle said as he released the Pokémon from its ball. The white light faded and revealed a small dog that was mostly gray but had black fur on its face, paws, and belly. It also had two small fangs that protruded from its bottom jaw.

Noodle stared intently at the pokemon for a second, quietly judging him. "He's cute." Noodle said as he reached down to pet the small Pokémon. Instead of allowing Noodle to touch him Poochyena proceeded to bite down on Noodle's hand…hard. Noodle lifted his hand to his face with Poochyena still hanging on with its teeth. "…and he likes me! Thanks Mark." Noodle said with a mighty grin.

Mark and I looked at each other wide eyed then turned back to Noodle. "You're welcome?" Mark said.

The party started to die down after that. Noodle and I decided to call it quits around one a.m. I bid him farewell and told him I'd be at his house around one to start our journey. I let Star out and said goodnight to her and Duke. Getting to sleep was hard because I felt so little anxious that it would be my last night in that bed for the year.


	3. It Starts Here

**Chapter 3**

The next morning my mother had made big breakfast. I tried to tell her that too much food now would just make me hungrier later in the day. She wouldn't listen and I ended up eating three full plates before she let me leave.

I hugged my parents goodbye and told them I would miss them. I tried to tell my sister Angie goodbye but she was too busy thinking about what to do with my room once I was gone. Once I double checked my stuff, Star jumped up on my shoulder then Duke followed me out the door.

When I got over to Noodle's house there was a smell of cookies in the air. His mom was always making something. Noodle was sitting on the couch watching TV. "Dude, do you even have your stuff packed?" Without looking at me, he pointed towards the stairway where Poochyena was helping Steak carry a hiking bag from Noodle's room. Mrs. Perry put down a cooking tray and walked towards me.

"Who is your new friend Bryon?" she asked while reaching for Star. The electric cat twitched back from her hand and jumped to my other shoulder. "It's alright Star. She's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet." I said to as I picked Star up and started to cradle her. Star sniffed Mrs. Perry's hand before she let herself be petted.

Noodle had now hopped off the couch to grab his stuff. "Dude, what's with the scarf?" he asked pointing to Duke and the new blue scarf around his neck.

"It was my mom's idea. She said it would make him stand out in case I have to look for him." I told him.

"Cool idea," he replied, "but the two eyes on it are creepy. It's like their staring at me."

"You just made it that much better." I said, mocking him.

"Maybe I should get Steak something like that." He said, ignoring my jab.

We stayed a few more minutes to check our supplies before leaving. Noodle had agreed to carry the food and our clothes while I carried the toiletries and most of the miscellaneous items.

Finally it was time to be on our way. "Bye Mom." Noodle said before walking out the door.

"Remember, tonight is pork chops." She said back. This confused me slightly. As we got to end of the driveway I looked at Noodle and asked, "Your mom does know where we are going, doesn't she?" He shot me a puzzled look.

"Dude, where are we going?" he asked.

"To Chicago, so we can beat Luke the electric gym leader. It's a three day trip by foot. I already told you this." I responded.

"Oh yeah." he said. Then a spaced out look came across his face. I shook him and asked.

"Noodle, did you tell your mom or not?"

"I think so." he said, "No, wait, yes I did… probably."

I sighed. "Good enough. But you will call her when we get to Chicago just to make sure."

It had been about eight hours since we left. Our legs were getting really tired and so were our Pokémon. Personally, I had decided that since all the walking was good for me, it was good for Duke and Star. I had also been making them run quick turns to work on their agility. As for Steak, he just seemed like he wanted to walk. Every once in a while I would see him shadow boxing or something.

"Can we stop?" Noodle finally asked in an exhausted voice. "We've been walking forever and I'm getting hungry."

"Alright, quit your whining." I said as I looked around. "Look there's a small cave we'll make camp there for tonight. Star, Steak, you two can go find some firewood so we can prepare dinner." Star looked nervous for a second then followed Steak with her head hung.

We entered the cave looking for a good place to lay our sleeping bags. I also had Noodle send out his poochyena to sniff out anything hidden in the cave. To my surprise, he actually found something and unfortunately it was a sleeping Solrock. What I saw was a large orange sphere with eight yellow spikes sticking out of it in a circle. Its yellow eyelids were completely closed except for small black slits that showed just enough of its red pupils so it could see. This made it look like someone who was always seconds away from sleep. However, its tiredness just showed how annoyed it was that we woke it.

Before I could do anything about this mess Noodle ran at the Pokémon with a stick. This proved ineffective as a spiral of flame came from Solrock and trapped Noodle in a vortex of fire. However, before Solrock could turn its attention elsewhere, Poochyena jumped on its back, biting down on the top spike and tried to pull the Solrock down. I thought about helping but quickly decided that it would be best to let Dexter handle this fight. Hopefully it would warm him up to the idea of battling.

Noodle called out through the vortex. "Good Poochyena, now head butt it." Poochyena loosed its grip and gave Noodle a confused look. Solrock's eyes quickly glowed and a rock outlined in a blue light flew at Poochyena.

I yelled at Noodle, "Poochyena doesn't know that attack!"

Now Noodle was confused, "What's so hard about head-butting someone?" There was no time to answer as the next rock sent Poochyena flying.

"Kick off the wall and this time bite it on a lower spike." Noodle said. In response Poochyena twisted in midair and landed its feet on the wall. Using the wall as a starting block, he took off towards Solrock at a blinding pace and bit the bottom spike as it was told. Noodle had a rare look on his face, almost like he was serious for once. "Now, spin in a circle and throw it like a Frisbee." Poochyena struggled as it started to pull and had to do a couple of spins before Noodle thought there was enough momentum to let go. But low and behold Solrock went flying and one of its spikes got stuck in the wall.

"Quick, give me a pokeball." Noodle yelled at me. Suddenly glad I bought a baker's dozen of them, I tossed a half red, half white ball to my friend. He threw the ball as hard as he could at the Solrock. It hit the pokémon dead center and we watched as Solrock turned into a white light and got sucked into the ball. As we waited for the red light to go out I thought about how hard a pokémon journey would be if a person didn't have at least a little bit of a baseball background.

A half hour later we had camp set and our pokémon had come back with the firewood. Steak was pretty mad that he had missed a battle and was giving Noodle the cold shoulder. I was keeping myself busy by cooking and testing strategies. Our hero for the day was over in the corner hitting a rock with head. It seemed he was trying to show Poochyena what a head-butt is. During dinner I asked Noodle the question that was burning in me. "Hey, why did you decide to catch that Solrock?" I asked.

Without looking up from his plate he said with a smile, "It looks kinda cool. Besides, what was I supposed to do, leave it stuck in the wall all night?" I sighed. It was a simple answer. But I shouldn't have expected much more from a simple man.


	4. A New Day

That night I could not sleep. I kept thinking about how Noodle had more pokémon than me. He didn't even want to take the league challenge. I awoke early and noticed that everyone else was sound asleep. I noted that Poochyena still had his mouth clamped down on Noodles arm even as they slept. Careful not to wake Duke, who was on top of me, I sat up and spent some time researching Solrock seeing as it would be traveling with us. Also, finding out its weaknesses would probably be beneficial to me in the future. About an hour later Steak woke up. I decided we had slept in long enough and had Steak go wake up the other pokémon.

Meanwhile I took it upon myself to wake Noodle up, by pouring a bottle of water on his face. He jumped up in shock.

"Dude, why?" he asked, annoyed.

"Because we're burning daylight," I said, "and we still have a lot of ground to cover before Chicago."

He whined, "Can't we at least get some breakfast?"

I tossed him an apple."Each pokémon got a biscuit and that should tide you over 'til lunch." He seemed angry but I didn't care. Chicago was still over a day's walk away.

All morning I was looking for a new pokémon to catch. I saw a lot of Caterpies and such but training them seemed like more work than I was willing to put into one pokémon. By lunchtime I had almost given up on catching the best pokémon for the team and instead settle on anything I could hit with a pokeball. At this point, Noodle had taken it upon himself to distract me from my despair with a conversation about crazy food combinations. At one point I became more focused on him then where I was going. Eventually I fell flat on my face. While Noodle was busy laughing I looked back to see what caught my foot.

What I saw was a bright purple creature that stood at almost two feet. He had big, long ears and spikes running down his back with one big one in the middle of his forehead. I instantly recognized him as a Nidoran and knew that he could be raised to be good powerhouse for my team.

"Make room!" I yelled at Noodle. "Star, it's time to get some experience, come here." Star ran to side and I pointed at the Nidoran. "Use spark on him." I said. Star ran towards Nidoran as blue electricity surrounded her body. Nidoran braced himself and a white aura surrounded his body. This did nothing to block the Stars attack as she ran right through Nidoran. But as Star tried to stop and turn around, Nidoran rolled to his feet and jumped in the air. He showed his back legs to Star as he kicked her once. Then Nidoran spun and the white aura focused into its other leg. His second kick sent Star flying a few feet.

When she landed I called out, "Get up and use charge." Star rose slowly and then yellow sparks surrounded her. "Good," I said, "now run in and tackle." Star ran straight for Nidoran. I noticed that Nidoran's horn started to glow purple. "Jump over his horn and use charge while in the air." Star quickly hurdled over the Nidoran and even more sparks surrounded her body. "Now use spark." I yelled. Star landed and came at Nidoran from behind. Her yellow sparks became blue and the amount of energy surrounding her body was significantly bigger than it was during the earlier attack. Nidoran screamed in pain as the attack hit.

Nidoran was having a lot of trouble getting back up so I threw the pokeball and waited for the red light to go out. Star and I danced around in victory. I did because of my new pokémon. Star was dancing because her battle was a success.

For the rest of the day I was pretty energetic. I had Nidoran walk beside me and got a feel for his moves and also let Star ride on my shoulder as a reward for her fight. By the time the sun was setting we had found a town and decided to stay our first night in a pokémon center.

We came in and thanked the nurse for taking our pokémon. As she took our pokeballs she started to stare at Noodle's arm. She handed our pokeballs to someone headed towards the back room and called us back. "Excuse me can I look at that black spot on your arm?" We looked at each other, then her.

"Sure," Noodle said while holding out his forearm, "but it's just a large bruise, nothing to be worried about."

"Hmm…" she said while inspecting and poking the spot. "This isn't a bruise." The nurse finally said. "This is a Pokémon's poison."

"But I haven't been hit by a poison attack." Noodle responded.

The Nurse flipped his arm and pointed at the spot. "Those are teeth marks." She told us. "This means that something probably got you with poison fang."

Noodle thought for a second. "That doesn't make sense. I haven't been bitten by anything expect Poochyena and he doesn't… ohhh." He said. The nurse sighed as she dragged him into the back room to get his wound cleaned.

I decided to head towards the beds pokémon centers had for trainers. There were four bunk beds in the room and lockers to keep our things in. There was also a bathroom with showers, a washing machine, and a dryer. I sniffed myself and realized that now was as good a time to wash as any.

When I came back I looked up and saw my friend rubbing a lotion on his arm. "I see you already took the top bunk." I said to him.

He looked back at me and said, "Yeah, well, I like it better up here. They said this stuff is a kind of antitoxin. It purifies the wound and such." I looked at my bunk where my pokémon lay.

"Thanks for grabbing them for me." I said.

"No problem." I heard back. Noodle threw our clothes into the washing machine on his way to the shower. As tired as I was, I just threw on a pair of shorts and fell asleep thinking that this time tomorrow I would be in Chicago preparing for my first gym battle.

The next morning started pretty slow. Apparently, we found the beds more comfortable than expected. Two days of walking and a night sleeping on the ground will do that. Unfortunately, the thought that plagued my mind most of that morning was of how many nights on the ground we had ahead of us.

Between those thoughts however, Noodle and I discussed how to go about training my Nidoran. He was different than the other two pokémon in my care. I knew he wouldn't grow to be a speed type. But he didn't have the attacks to be a powerhouse at his current level. Eventually I decided to have him use his own attacks to block incoming ones from Duke. At least for now he could learn to keep his defense up against faster opponents.

A few hours after lunch we could finally see a train station that lead towards downtown Chicago. I gave Noodle a sideways glance.

"Care for a race?" I asked.

"Only if you're ready to lose." Noodle replied, his hands already fingering his pokeballs.

We put quickly called our pokémon back and took off like rockets in anticipation of riding somewhere for the rest of the day. But as we ran I spotted a flock of bird pokémon overhead. All I could see was their blue bodies between white, cottony wings.

"Swablu…" I muttered to myself.

Noodle nearly tripped over himself when he noticed I had stopped to look at the sky. "Hey Bryon," Noodle asked in a slightly annoyed tone. "Why'd you stop?"

I pointed up at the sky and answered him. "From what I remember, those Swablu are can end up being really strong if trained correctly. But I have no idea how to get close enough to catch one. Any thoughts?"

Without saying a word Noodle let out Solrock and launched it at the group of bird pokémon. Solrock flew straight through without hitting anything. But one started falling anyway and I swear I saw Solrock's eyes glow blue for an instant. Noodle sent his Poochyena to retrieve Solrock when it landed and I ran towards the now falling Swablu. Unfortunately the bird pokémon started regaining his composure before I could get to him. I quickly opened Star's pokeball and told her to use my head as a jumping point to start her attack. Swablu was about six feet in the air when he finally stopped his decent. He turned upwards only to see that above him was a Shinx surrounded by the electric blue aura of a spark attack.

I followed the dirt skid mark to find Star sitting on top Swablu, pinning it to the ground. Apparently Swablu was so taken by surprise that he had no energy to even try and fight back as I caught him. The fight seemed had seemed unfair and I felt a little disheartened.

Noodle caught up a few minutes later and saw that I had been victorious. "What's with the long face?" He asked.

I stared at the pokeball. "I didn't catch this on my own. You knocked him out of the sky. You should have him." I offered the ball and he pushed it back to me.

"It doesn't matter who caught it, just who will train it better. That's you." Noodle said.

I nodded. "You're right." I said as a smirk grew on my face.

"And besides," he said, "Didn't you see that I missed? Solrock didn't hit a thing." I laughed at my friend and we continued towards the train station.

I spent the train ride explaining to Swablu exactly why I had caught him. He accepted the spot on my team with grace and sat in my lap as I got to learned how to communicate with him. The train took another hour and it was getting towards late afternoon when we got to the pokémon center. We set our bags in a locker and went to the front desk for directions to the gym.

"Here you go." The nurse said while handing us maps of Chicago. "But the gym will be closed by the time you get to it."

"How come?" I asked.

"Luke, the leader, fights challengers all day and trains when there are none. He closes the gym at seven to give his pokémon and himself the time to rest and reflect." She said smiling.

"Seems legit," Noodle said, "but what should we do in the meantime?"

The nurse shrugged and walked away to check in other trainers. I suggested to Noodle that we should use the free time to take a break from each other and do some shopping. We were running a little low on supplies and I wanted to check out selection of stores around there. "Meet back here around ten?" I asked and got a nod in response.


End file.
